My breath hitched in my throat. I swallowed hard. I wasn’t expecting that.
“I just…” He looked at my lips, wetting his. “I have a lot going on. A lot of people depend on me for survival, and I’ve never been in love or anything before. I don’t know how to do this, but I care about you. I fucking do.”
Love?What the what? Care about me? I realized then that I’d been raised by a warm and loving woman and he’d been raised by a demon. Maybe he really didn’t know how to do this.
I cut him off with a kiss. Pressing my lips to his, I reached up and wrapped my arms around the back of his neck. His whole body relaxed as we came together, and I could feel the smile tugging at his lips. Opening my mouth, I deepened the kiss, letting our tongues brush together in a small token of what we had last night. Desire flared within me; it was hard to explain this feeling of complete contentedness when we were together like this.
When we pulled apart, we were both breathless.
“We’ll figure out how to do this together,” I told him.
He nodded, looking more at ease with himself and less stressed. I wondered if I had only let him speak this morning and had the stupid peanut butter cracker breakfast he’d made, if he would have told me the same things. He wasn’t good with words, that was for sure. I stepped away, heart full for the first time since we’d been together last night.
“Okay, here is the plan. Only I can touch the crystals.” He paused, chewing at his lip. “So I need you to create a diversion out here so I can slip inside there.”
I looked up at the house on the hill. It was overcast and gloomy, dark clouds sending shadows across the rooftop of the home.
I gulped. “Okay.”
He seemed lost in thought, planning. “This will be the most heavily guarded place my dad has, whether he is here or not. I’ll get the crystals and be right back. Two minutes, tops.”
Another nod, but a stone sank in my gut. I had a bad feeling about splitting up. “Be safe,” I said.
He reached out and stroked my face. “Pull up a shield over yourself this time, okay?”
I smiled. “Okay.”
With that, he kicked off the ground and shot in the direction of the house. Gods he was fast. Taking in a deep breath, I kicked off my shoes and sank my feet into the grass, connecting with Mother Earth. Pulling on my training, I called a shield up over me. It was a thin clear dome that would hopefully protect me from harm—if I could keep control of it.
Okay. Distraction time.
There was nothing to fucking distract with! No car, no gun, no dog.
“HEYYYY!” I shouted at the top of my lungs at no one in particular, building a healing ball between my hands. Every Fae had mild healing abilities, enough to staunch a skinned and bleeding knee from a crying child, or ease a headache, nothing crazy. But they were colorful, so I built this purple healing ball and then chucked it over the fence and waited for some kind of noise to indicate someone saw it.
Nothing. I was officially the worst distraction maker in history and would probably get Liam killed.
Reaching down, I picked up a rock and took flight. Flapping my wings, I flew overtop of the hedged fence and saw some guards patrolling the property below. I chucked the rock and screamed again, causing the guards to look up at me and shout. They were wingless, thank the gods, and when they saw me I took off back over the hedge to lure them out. I couldn’t see Liam, but he must be hiding in the treetops and waiting to make his move on the house.
When gunfire snapped through the air, my heart leapt into my throat.
I stumbled mid-flight and lost my shield, tumbling to the ground and landing awkwardly on my right ankle.
They’re shooting at me?Well, I guess that was a good distraction. I pulled out my obsidian dagger. I’d literally brought a knife to a gunfight.Great.
“You know this is all your fault,” a familiar deep voice called from behind me just as the two Sons burst through the hedge, pointing a gun at me. I kicked off the ground, building my shield as I went. Turning mid-air, I came face to face with the owner of that voice.
The Winter King hovered before me, wings flapping and sending out tendrils of black smoke as he glared.
“It’s your fault we have to steal crystals!” he roared above the wind while I tried with all my might to hold my shield. Trissa had drilled into me over and over again how important shield work was, but I never practiced. Maybe if someone had told me how dangerous my life work would be, I would have listened!
Regretting that now.
Where the hell was Liam?
“Oh yeah?” I screamed back. “You sound like a child. No one can make you do these things.”
His face grimaced into something dark and macabre. “If the queen would have just allowed us to come and go freely, to see our human lovers and bring our children back and forth, this wouldn’t have happened.”
